Interesting perspective, David! I'll push back on one or two things, first, that corporations are thinking in decades instead of quarters. The VC structure in Silicon Valley prioritizes time-to-market over all else, which leads to what we see in OpenAI: initial fundamental research, but a complete shutoff of fundamental research after 2021-22 when ChatGPT began to yield results. In the scientific community, we call them "ClosedAI". You also mentioned Google/Deepmind as another example, but they similarly halted publications for a long while during the rollout of Gemini. A good example you can point to would be Meta/FAIR, which is leading the open-source AI movement to everyone's surprise.
I'm curious if you have any clarity on how to achieve both technological supremacy and public self-determination. By definition, monopolies lack the second, but public institutions are too broke to be "cathedrals of innovation" (love that term, by the way). Intentionally designed, case-by-case regulation allowing companies with good intentions to pool resources into basic research sounds like a great way forward, but I fear Congress lacks the attention span and ideological nuance to achieve anything close to that.
Interesting read, but it leans more toward a clever contrarian take than a grounded analysis. It paints monopolies as misunderstood engines of progress without really grappling with how concentrated power tends to play out—through regulatory capture, labor suppression, and gatekeeping. The binary between “chaotic competition” and “benevolent monopoly” feels overly neat.
There’s also this quiet assumption that we should move on from public institutions—as if the answer to inefficiency is just to hand the reins to private monopolies. But looking around at hype-driven markets and platform bloat, it’s hard to see that as a reliable path forward.
Corporate innovation clearly has a place. But we also need to rebuild trust in institutions that are meant to serve the public, not scrap them entirely. Letting go of that project just shifts more power to actors who answer to no one but shareholders—and that’s not the same thing as progress.
Really appreciate the thoughtful response! You're right - there are real concerns about concentrated power.
My point isn't that we should hand innovation to corporations - it's that we already have. The vacuum left by declining public research (from 1.9% of GDP in 1964 to 0.6% in 2019) was filled by companies with the resources to think in decades, not quarters.
There are excellent examples of public-private partnerships, like DARPA's self-driving in 2007, which catalyzed a new industry. We need more of these targeted approaches.
But here's the real question: We're in an existential race for AI supremacy. Will the taxpayer foot the bill for the $5-8 trillion in data centers needed to compete with China? Until then, we're criticizing our strongest innovation engines without a viable alternative.
This is a great breakdown and analysis of why targeting and splitting up tech giants like Google can have indirect negative repercussions in the long-run. We usually consume content about how these tech giants are stifling innovation and building a monopolistic empire without really considering the full picture + the history (as you outline).
To add on to your thoughts, I think privatization of products/services, in general, is an idea to consider in many places. For example, while riding in a New York subway recently, I realized that the USA is one of the few industrialized countries in the western world to not have a high-speed rail network. While it’s extremely challenging to raise funds to build out the infrastructure, it raises some questions about could a private company take up the project and achieve this on a shorter timeline with more efficiency? I’m sure this could be applied in several problem spaces, but it’s something to think about.
Interesting perspective, David! I'll push back on one or two things, first, that corporations are thinking in decades instead of quarters. The VC structure in Silicon Valley prioritizes time-to-market over all else, which leads to what we see in OpenAI: initial fundamental research, but a complete shutoff of fundamental research after 2021-22 when ChatGPT began to yield results. In the scientific community, we call them "ClosedAI". You also mentioned Google/Deepmind as another example, but they similarly halted publications for a long while during the rollout of Gemini. A good example you can point to would be Meta/FAIR, which is leading the open-source AI movement to everyone's surprise.
I'm curious if you have any clarity on how to achieve both technological supremacy and public self-determination. By definition, monopolies lack the second, but public institutions are too broke to be "cathedrals of innovation" (love that term, by the way). Intentionally designed, case-by-case regulation allowing companies with good intentions to pool resources into basic research sounds like a great way forward, but I fear Congress lacks the attention span and ideological nuance to achieve anything close to that.
Interesting read, but it leans more toward a clever contrarian take than a grounded analysis. It paints monopolies as misunderstood engines of progress without really grappling with how concentrated power tends to play out—through regulatory capture, labor suppression, and gatekeeping. The binary between “chaotic competition” and “benevolent monopoly” feels overly neat.
There’s also this quiet assumption that we should move on from public institutions—as if the answer to inefficiency is just to hand the reins to private monopolies. But looking around at hype-driven markets and platform bloat, it’s hard to see that as a reliable path forward.
Corporate innovation clearly has a place. But we also need to rebuild trust in institutions that are meant to serve the public, not scrap them entirely. Letting go of that project just shifts more power to actors who answer to no one but shareholders—and that’s not the same thing as progress.
Really appreciate the thoughtful response! You're right - there are real concerns about concentrated power.
My point isn't that we should hand innovation to corporations - it's that we already have. The vacuum left by declining public research (from 1.9% of GDP in 1964 to 0.6% in 2019) was filled by companies with the resources to think in decades, not quarters.
There are excellent examples of public-private partnerships, like DARPA's self-driving in 2007, which catalyzed a new industry. We need more of these targeted approaches.
But here's the real question: We're in an existential race for AI supremacy. Will the taxpayer foot the bill for the $5-8 trillion in data centers needed to compete with China? Until then, we're criticizing our strongest innovation engines without a viable alternative.
This is a great breakdown and analysis of why targeting and splitting up tech giants like Google can have indirect negative repercussions in the long-run. We usually consume content about how these tech giants are stifling innovation and building a monopolistic empire without really considering the full picture + the history (as you outline).
To add on to your thoughts, I think privatization of products/services, in general, is an idea to consider in many places. For example, while riding in a New York subway recently, I realized that the USA is one of the few industrialized countries in the western world to not have a high-speed rail network. While it’s extremely challenging to raise funds to build out the infrastructure, it raises some questions about could a private company take up the project and achieve this on a shorter timeline with more efficiency? I’m sure this could be applied in several problem spaces, but it’s something to think about.